Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. The book was published on 8 July 1999. The novel won the 1999 Whitbread Book Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the 2000 Locus Award, and was short-listed for other awards, including the Hugo. This placed the novel among the most-honoured works of fantasy in recent history. A film based on the novel was released on 31 May 2004, in the United Kingdom and 4 June 2004 in the U.S. and many other countries. This is the only novel in the series that does not feature Lord Voldemort in some form.

Of the first three books in the series, Prisoner of Azkaban took the shortest amount of time to write – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone took five years to complete and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets needed two years, while Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was written in one year. Rowling’s favorite aspect of this book was introducing the character Remus Lupin.

Some lines from Chapter One:

Owl Post

Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. For one thing, he hated the summer holidays more than any other time of year. For another, he really wanted to do his homework but was forced to do it in secret, in the dead of night. And he also happened to be a wizard.

It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book (A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot) propped open against the pillow. Harry moved the tip of his eagle-feather quill down the page, frowning as he looked for something that would help him write his essay, ‘Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless — discuss.’

The quill paused at the top of a likely looking paragraph. Harry pushed his round glasses up the bridge of his nose, moved his flashlight closer to the book, and read: